, the FREEMEN, who were Odhal occupiers, holding in capite from
the sovereign, nearly disappeared in the Wars of the Roses. Monarchs who
owed their crown to the favor of the nobles were too weak to uphold
the rights of those who held directly from the Crown, and who, in their
isolation, were almost powerless.

The term FREEMAN, originally one of the noblest in the land, disappeared
in relation to urban tenures, and was applied solely to the personal
rights of civic burghers; instead thereof arose the term FREEHOLDER from
FREE HOLD, which was originally a grant free from all rent, and only
burdened with military service. The term was subsequently applied to
land held for leases for lives as contradistinguished from leases for
years, the latter being deemed base tenures, and insufficient to qualify
a man to vote; the theory being that no man was free whose tenure could
be disturbed during his life. Though the Liberi Homines or FREEMEN were,
as a class, overborne in this struggle, and reduced to vassalage, yet
their descendants were able, under the leadership of Cromwell, to regain
some of the rights and influence of which they had been despoiled under
the Plantagenets.

Fortescue, Lord Chief-Justice to Henry VI., thus describes the condition
of the English people:

"They drunk no water, unless it be that some for devotion, and upon a
rule of penance, do abstain from other drink. They eat plentifully
of all kinds of flesh and fish. They wear woollen cloth in all their
apparel. They have abundance of bed covering in their houses, and
all other woollen stuff. They have great store of all implements of
household. They are plentifully furnished with all instruments of
husbandry, and all other things that are requisite to the accomplishment
of a great and wealthy life, according to their estates and degrees."

This flattering picture is not supported by the existing disaffection
and the repeated applications for redress from the serfs and the smaller
farmers, and the simple fact that the population had increased under
the Normans--a period of 88 years--from 2,150,000 to 3,350,000, while
under the Plantagenets--a period of 300 years--it only increased to
4,000,000, the addition to the population in that period being only
650,000. The average increase in the former period was nearly 14,000 per
annum, while in the latter it did not much exceed 2000 per annum. This
goes far to prove the evil from civil wars, and the oppression o